Thursday, September 27, 2012

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, by N. K. Jemisin

First of all, let me thank Morphi who recommended this book a few weeks ago when I said I was reading authors-of-color...-of-speculative-fiction for the Diverse Universe Tour. This is EXACTLY what I needed after reading all those heavy literary works. This book was fun brain candy, but it also had some interesting messages as well. :)

My Review:

When Yeine Darr's mother dies, she is called for an unexpected interview with her estranged maternal grandfather, the ruler of The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms. Under the guise of adopting her into the family, her grandfather's twisted family holds Yeine against her will in the city of Sky. Presumably, she is a third contender to take her grandfather's place as ruler--but what are his motivations for accepting her (as outcast) into the family? On top of that, Yeine is also being seduced by the charms of the "gods" of Sky...and one of them is the ultimate bad-boy. These gods have been treated as slaves by Yeine's family for two thousand years, and they want their own piece of Yeine's new life. Yeine must weave her way through a maze of deceit to decide who her allies are. I loved this book because I was in great need of some brain candy right about now. It's light, fun, fluffy...as long as you approach it like brain candy, you'll really love it. :) Despite it's fun fluffy nature, Jemisin manged to weave in messages about unbendingly dogmatic religions, slavery, women's rights, and abuse of power. These messages do not overpower the story, but they're there if you want to think about them. In my mind, this was a perfect mixture and just what I needed right now. :)About the Author:N. K. Jemisin was born in Iowa city in a year un-noted by Wikipedia. ;) She grew up in New York City and Mobile, Alabama. The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms is her debut book...it was considered for the Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy awards the year it came out. I look forward to watching as Jemisin's writing develops. :) If her first book is so good, then perhaps her writing will get even better as time progresses!

5 comments:

This sounds pretty interesting. I used to love to read all sorts of stuff like this when I was a teenager, but my 'literary' studies have sort of filled my shelves up with eminently 'serious' stuff! I will look out for this next time I'm on the hunt for something new to read. :)

La Graciada: Thanks for stopping by. This was certainly an excellent book!I think it's a good idea to delve into genre fiction instead of only reading "literary" fiction. There's a lot to appreciate in a good epic fantasy novel!

Liviania: Well, it was fluffy compared to the last three books that I posted about. It was like a breath of fresh air, in fact. :)